Thursday, 7 July 2016

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: More about windows

“So, what about our windows?” It’s usually a half-asked question at some early stage of a project, about the colour of windows generally – which are usually picked by someone who has a favourite colour they see in a brochure – or about how many windows in a space – just holes punched in a wall -- but the placement and colour of your windows is more important than you might think.

Studies in neuroscience in architecture will continue to show the benefits of bright, daylight rooms.. Lowering costs through simplicity was always a factor for [Neutra] so that the client could afford gracious social areas within a limited budget, which he took very seriously. A room with a single exposure, especially a bedroom or business office, is the hardest to work with. Neutra’s answer was wall-to-wall windows, but not necessarily floor-to-ceiling. Extending them to the corners created light onto, and gained reflection from, the side walls. This accomplishes brightness with lessening of glare. Some light from those walls reflects back onto the solid portion of the window wall, again decreasing glare. Thus, a feeling of a dark cave wall with a single overly bright opening was avoided. The effect of opening up the room is further enhanced because the eye flows to the nature beyond the glass, unhampered by the enclosure of dead corners. I have long believed that glare is caused by the eye’s rapid re-focusing between light and dark. This is stressful, which is why it is uncomfortable. Together with similar adjacent rooms, these wall-to-wall windows produced a long ribbon window on the exterior.

So it’s not enough just to punch a hole in your wall: to avoid the dark cave means more glass than you might have thought: and glass especially going to the corners, so light can fully wash the internal walls. (And feel free to even take the glass round onto the next wall plane itself to fully open up your corners!)

And bear this in mind when you’re hanging your curtains: make sure you have enough curtain rail to take all of your curtains well past their window when they’re open, and to draw them away from any adjacent wall lest they remain and cast the very shadow you’re trying to avoid.

Notice too that the exterior effect (the long ribbon window) is produced by the interior purpose, that purpose being to avoid glare and dark corners, and fully open up the space to nature outside the glass. This connection, Neutra believed and neuroscience has since confirmed, is essential for human health and well-being.

Bear in mind too, especially if fitting blinds, that because the brightest part of the ‘sky dome’ is directly above us, we will get most of our light through the window’s top-third, so unless you do want that dark cave you’d best avoid having your blinds bunch up at the top of your window.

So what about the colour of your windows, and the window walls? Does perception play a part in suggesting how to handle these? Sure does: to minimise the contrast between the outside brightness and the shadow unavoidably cast on the inside of your window joinery, Neutra always favoured the light-reflecting colour of silver. But for his window-walls themselves, something much richer:

The walls below Neutra’s continuous windows might have built-in cabinetry or in a colour different than the white side walls, perhaps the favorite colour of a child occupant. If white paint were to be used below the windows as on the side walls, that low band of paint would actually appear to look dirty because less light is being reflected there. However, because using a colour could detract from the view outdoors, which was his invariable goal because it promised the most actual health benefit, he did this on an individual basis. Ideally, his choice for this lower band was his chocolate “Neutra Brown.” This particular brown, it seems to me, is a “magic colour” in that the eye identifies it but does not attempt to focus on it, so its use is oddly comforting, as I have experienced. Any post in this extended bank of windows was usually painted silver, another “magic” colour. It created the least amount of contrast with the incoming light, and it almost made any post disappear to create openness. Again, expansiveness! Additionally, Neutra ensured that any vertical sliding door jamb would be hidden on the exterior side of a post or wall. Likewise, he concealed the horizontal head of such door so that it was hidden within or behind the roof framing. Again, openness, rather than a sliding door frame silhouetted within the structural frame, which would pose another obstruction to our view of the outdoors. It is an experience so subtle that it is not seen other than subliminally. All this gives us the “Neutra impact.” We do not look at his windows, we look through them.

That’s the reward of we get it all right: by starting from the inside out, letting the function dictate the form.

I hope this Mini-Tutorial has helped you see the placement and colour of your windows rather differently.

7 comments:

People buying into homes, start with what they get. Wooden window frames get 1/8th spanish white enamel from me, no arguments. But I like brown, Mum says. Pretends apoplexy falls over, get up , make that 1/16th spanish white

I love large windows like these but always wonder how you get enough bracing component into the structure like this to meet our codes without a heavy steel frame. Surely the glass walls are bearing little load so there must be a very large cantilever component. Also, the visible beams are at very large centres as well so a plan would be nice to show how you can achieve this effect without a fragile structure.

Hello. barbara lamprecht here. it was enjoyable to see so much of my text and John Blanton's here. Mr. Blanton was one of the lead project architects for Richard Neutra. These lead architects were consummate professionals who were trusted by Neutra; each was a talented architect in his own right; three or four became right-hand men to Neutra, including John. Mr. Blanton has been critical to my own work in Neutra scholarship; whenever I have a question about a detail or strategy, we can work it out together, as honestly and as forthrightly as possible. The house shown here is the Hailey House, for which I have served as project manager, construction supervisor, historical consultant, and architectural historian for the past three and a half years. It is exceptional in that two young buck s, a pair of developer builders, approached Neutra to design a house on a virtually unbuildable lot; its slope, I believe was about 45 degrees. Our first task was to evaluate its structural integrity, and go from there. We tackled the hard stuff first, and worked with the very best craftsmen in LA. It may be the only Neutra house in the world whose primary facade colors include a large plane of light yellow, punctuated by a brilliant persimmon at the second door. (Neutra was an expert at color and its effect on perception, demonstrated at the former Garden Grove Community church, newly rehabilitated along with the Tower of Hope on the same campus; the rehabilitation has won six awards so far, and is well worth a visit. ) At the Hailey, Neutra compressed many of the spatial strategies he used in larger homes, and lost nothing in the bargain at the Hailey. Best wishes, barbara lamprecht, m.arch., ph.d., bmlamprecht@gmail.com

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